Can teachers manipulate language to their advantage, as a way of shifting their students' perspectives in a more positive direction? It might sound a little Orwellian, but Steven Kushner, who teaches at Bremen High School in Midlothian, Illinois, has found that taking a page from "Big Brother" can be an effective educational strategy.  Continue reading...

I do not have any sisters. I have but one sibling, a beloved brother, Poopie (not his real name). I'm blessed in that over the course of my life, I have made very close female friends who feel like family to me, but no actual sisters of the Lord-Help-The-Mister-Who-Comes-Between-Me-and-My-Sister type. Maybe that is why I've long been fascinated with Louisa May Alcott's classic American novel, Little Women, about four sisters.  Continue reading...

It's an age-old quandary: what to do about the lack of a gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun in English? Writing teacher Margaret Hundley Parker tackles this grammatical stumbling block, drawing on her experience in the college classroom — on both sides of the pedagogical divide.  Continue reading...

You can keep your Liz Taylor screaming in her white sundresses, and your bellowing Marlon Brando in an undershirt bellowing outside Stella's window: I think Tennessee William's finest work isn't A Streetcar Named Desire or Suddenly Last Summer, or even Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Genius as they all are, I think his most magical, lyrical play is The Glass Menagerie.  Continue reading...

Writing teacher Margaret Hundley Parker has a simple lesson for her students: Don't learn grammar from rock stars. Here Margaret explains how rock and roll lyrics with non-standard English constructions can often lead students of grammar astray.  Continue reading...

Teachers from across the country write us about how the Visual Thesaurus helps their students increase reading comprehension. Now a federally funded study is taking a closer look at the connection between the Visual Thesaurus and reading. Developed by researchers at the prestigious Education Development Center, Inc. in Boston, the study is following eighth grade students with learning disabilities who've been introduced to the Visual Thesaurus. Their findings show that the Visual Thesaurus can significantly help students struggling with reading comprehension.  Continue reading...

Recently, one of my teachers sent me a link to an interview of Larry McMurtry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove, given to Fritz Lanham of the Houston Chronicle. The interview contained Mr. McMurtry's very pessimistic viewpoint that the end of book culture is near.  Continue reading...